


Dreamer - The tale of Gine

by Ally_D



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: #dragonballminus #badagine #dragonball #gine #bardock #romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:14:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28552194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ally_D/pseuds/Ally_D
Summary: There was once a young Saiyan who was not born for combat but showed an inner strength that shaped one of the greatest warriors ever born. This is also the story of her great love, Bardock, the Saiyan warrior who dared to challenge Freeza.
Relationships: Bardock/Gine (Dragon Ball)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. Survivor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silbermond_S](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silbermond_S/gifts).
  * A translation of [Sonhadora - A história de Gine](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/737937) by Ally_D. 



> I created some measures and conventions for the fanfic. Thus, 1 rac = 10 cm, 1 dig = approximately 2kg, and a year at Vegetasey lasts 3 weeks more than a year of earth. So, 14 years for a Saiyan is equivalent to almost 15 years for an earthling (one week less, to be precise).   
> The Saiyan day has 24 hours, counted in quarters starting at Midnight. So, 8:25 AM, for example, is 2:25, first quarter; Noon is the first hour, second quarter, 6:00 PM is the First hour, third quarter and Midnight is just the First Hour. I know it is a complicated way to count hours with no canon support, but I wanted to create a different hour system.

"Crash!"

The noise and pain were almost simultaneous. The solid hit me in the nose, and I felt the nasal bridge bone-breaking perfectly. It was the third time this year that I broke my nose in a combat exercise. Considering that this was the final exercise of the period, it was not good for the team or me.

With as much dignity as possible, I put the scouter back on my left eye and said:

“Start reading damage.”

_Soldier 234. Gine Neela. 13 years. 14.7 racs high, 16digs. Muscle mass: low. Weight to height ratio is…_

“I asked for the damage, not the data!” I mumbled. “Stupid scouter.”

_Nasal bridge fracture. Bruising and abrasions on the left arm. Bruising and excoriation on right shoulder._

"Crash!" I had raised my head to prevent blood from dripping on the individual evaluation camera stuck in my chest, and another bolus hit me. This time, somewhere else.

_Jaw fracture!_

I lowered my head. Now there was one more place that hurt. The blood started to accumulate in my nasal pits. I spat so I wouldn't suffocate. It was worse because it started bleeding even more. I raised my head again so as not to suffocate with my own blood.

"Crash"

_Two broken teeth. Jaw fracture aggravation._

The blood now suffocated me, in fact. And I felt the shattered teeth in my mouth. I was supposed to move forward, running away from the solids, but how? I could barely crawl, leaving a trail of blood on the ground.

I looked forward. There was the line I was supposed to hit. The team was assumed to get there and start the final degree of the combat exercise. And I would barely stand up in pain. The solids kept coming, with no mercy, small rubber balls of medium impact. The instructor always said that they were too light. They were not even comparable to no single weapon of any vulnerable population that one day we would face when we'd become Saiyan soldiers.

And that was only the measure of my incompetence as a soldier. I decided there that I would move on. After all, Saiyans usually get stronger when they recover from injuries. I crawled, spat out more blood, and stood up, my arms protecting my ruined face. I ran, and a solid hit my fist, protected by armor. The final line was closer but never looked so far away.

"Focus, Gine, Focus... only a few racs, and you'll make it."

"Crash"

_Deep abrasion in the back. Consider contacting the medical support team._

I had forgotten that the solids didn't just come facing me. I was almost reaching the line when one more solid hit me, on my back, with the bonus of hitting my tail, which was prudently tied on the belt. I fell flat on my face.

_Tail contusion. Deep abrasion in the forehead. Consider contacting the medical support team… Immediately._

I remained on the ground, lying face down, defeated.

"I'm going to die..." I thought, dramatically.

Suddenly, I was lifted at once by someone. A guy held me by the back of my armor as if I was a feather. I really was too light for a Saiyan about to turn 14. The mysterious hook boy took me beyond the line, where he dropped me on the ground without any kindness before I got up and turned.

“You had just one job, cross the fucking line, dammit!”

I spat blood, and he looked at me with a critical eye before saying to his own scouter:

“Assess damage data to the framed soldier.”

_Private 234. Gine Neela. 13 years old. 14.7 racs tall, 16digs..._

“I asked for the damage, not the data!” he said, crusty, and the scouter listed all my unfortunate injuries, which I heard in humiliation, avoiding the eyes of the rest of the team, reunited ahead, after the guy. Of course, I was the last, the pathetic and incompetent latecomer.

He looked at me without the slightest empathy, only with his critical eye as the team leader. I knew him, by the way, who didn't know him? He was the "perfect soldier," known as number 186, or, simply, Bardock Naaranje. The hard thing for me was to accept that the mass of muscles measuring over 18 racs was the same age as me. And he must have weighed about 45 digs without any fat. Handsome? Certainly, but not the most beautiful of the soldiers, he had the middle biotype of a low-class soldier but worked hard since the first day at the Academy to change his fate.

And now, he was not a low-class soldier. Everybody wanted to be on Bardock Naaranje's team because he was an exceptional leader, a natural-born strategist, destined always to win. Many girls and part of the boys in my place would be sighing, but I was barely breathing and could only think about pain.

He heard the damage reading from my scouter and said, on the communicator coupled to the scouter:

“Team leader 2 asked for permission to extract a soldier in bad combat condition with 75% of the route completed. What is your number again?” he finally looked at me.

“234...”

“Soldier two-three-four,” he repeated, “I repeat, damage beyond average, authorization to extract the soldier to the medical post, report the casualty, and proceed with the rest of the team.”

I did not hear the instructions he received from his scouter. But he suddenly faced me and said:

“Ready for the extraction, soldier?”

“I can try to stay and go to combat first!” I said, pretending to be brave but knowing that I would fail, just because it was expected from a Saiyan in the combat field: ask for die before giving up.

“No, you can't. You'll delay us and get in the way of the team. I can't risk them because of you," He said and dragged me by the arm, without the slightest care. At the meeting point, the rest of the team was waiting in front of a door. It should be opened as soon as everybody gathered. Over the door, blue light on was a good signal; it meant that the team on the other side had not yet arrived and was at a disadvantage because when the door opened, the hand-to-hand combat would start there, and the first team to arrive would choose the best places to hide and wait for the adversaries. 

He put me on a platform, and I collapsed. He pressed a button, and the platform started to descend. It was an extraction point. A medical team was waiting for me below. Bardock did not wait for me to finish descending, ran to the door to continue in advantage. Even with me outside, theoretically, the whole team had crossed the finish line of the survival test. That's why he had saved me and dragged me there because a team leader would have a better score if the full team survive to the first section.

I was seated in an armchair in a small floating medical extraction wagon by an alien nurse and taken by the team through the long corridor under the training arena. There was only one Saiyan on the medical team, a woman, my old acquaintance, Doctor Chard. She had taken care of every little tragedy that had happened in my life since I was 10 years old and joined the Saiyan Academy.

“Hi Gine!” she said cheerfully, looking at me through the medical scouter, that had already communicated with my combat scouter remotely and was indicating treatments. “Let's see... Nose, jaw, forehead, arms, back, tail, but not fractured... what a beautiful mess you have here, girl!”

“It was all in the third quadrant," I moaned "in the first two, I didn't get hurt.”

“Open your mouth, Gine!”

I opened it, and she took the pieces out of my broken teeth. There were two of them, and she watched them.

“Nothing that a little regenerative glue can't fix. No prosthesis needed.” She smiled. “At least, finishing is survival! But, as always, your weakness is the quadrants with solids. You get distracted easily.”

“True. My father called me daydreamer, said I lived in the other world.”

The doctor laughed. We floated to the medical center, and I smiled, relieved. The blood clotted in my nose was forcing me to breathe through my mouth, but I knew that in 45 minutes or so, I would be brand new.

The two aliens on the team took off my armor and laid me on a stretcher, under Doctor Chard's supervision. One of them opened my mouth and observed my teeth. Skillfully, he glued the shards of my teeth that the doctor passed to him, using regenerative glue. I knew it was a Branch-Sejin, and I thanked him in his language, as he replied:

“You're too kind for a Saiyan!”

I smiled but honestly did not know if it was a compliment or a rebuke. But for them, he smiled at me and said:

“After a while in the regeneration chamber, you can't even feel the difference in your teeth.”

It was true. I had already broken 22 teeth since I entered the Saiyan Academy and never lost a single one. Doctor Chard then continued the examination that was mandatory before going to the tank. Any damage, residue, fracture, or wound must be examined before immersion to prevent a bone from regenerating in the wrong position.

“So, Gine...” she held my jaw and observed a monitor showing my fractured jaw bone before lining it up painfully. “You had a better performance than in the third year exam. No exposed fractures for the first time! No one can’t say you are not evolving!” she put the bone in place. The monitor flickered, warning that I was ready to regenerate the fracture.

I grunted in agreement, and she started vacuuming the blood from my nose with a thin hose. Large clots accumulated in a transparent container, and she evaluated:

“Less blood lost...”

I breathed relief because the average level of damage influenced the final results. The year before, I had a less difficult exam and had an average performance, but my damage dropped my numbers so much that I scraped through the exam.

By the way, scraping was my routine when it came to combat routine. I was one of the top students in everything theoretical, including combat strategy. One teacher said ironically that if there were a Saiyan diplomacy, I would be an ambassador because I understood and spoke 6 alien languages and understood the entire culture of the allied peoples, including that of the dreaded Icejins, the race of our illustrious "boss," Freeza.

But Saiyans were soldiers, not diplomats.

If I could have chosen, I would never have gone to the Saiyan Academy. I would have preferred something like Doctor Chard's role, but my mother had spent all my educational credits to make me a warrior like herself. If I failed or gave up, I would only be left to take up someplace in the meat warehouse she had inherited from my father, a profitable business, but of little renown.

"Ready," said the doctor, as soon as my nose was perfectly aligned (but swollen, indeed) “perfect for the regeneration tank, girl. Don't worry about that swelling. In an hour, we'll have back your beautiful delicate face!”

I smiled. I didn't think I was pretty for the Saiyans standards of strong and muscular women. But my face was really delicate. One of our instructors, an expert in alien cultures, said I would pass for an earthling, humans from a smaller planet that was not in the plans to conquer of Icejin Coola empire.

The doctor helped me take off all my combat clothes and put me in the chamber when I was already wearing only my underwear, holding me and attaching myself to the tank from behind. Finally, she put the respirator on my face. It was one of the most pleasant sensations to fall asleep in a regeneration chamber and wake up perfectly healthy. Unfortunately, I was more used to it than I should be if I wanted to be a good soldier. 

The chamber closed, the regenerative fluid started to enter underneath, at a tepid and pleasant temperature. The sedative injected along with the oxygen I was breathing, however, made me lose consciousness before the liquid passed from my ankles, and I plunged into a pleasurable and restorative sleep as soon as the generalized pain disappeared. 

* * *

One of the best things about coming out of a regeneration tank is the feeling that everything is really ok again. I came back to consciousness with the yellowish liquid that had totally healed me, being drained by the same place it had flowed. It was as if I had never broken my nose. It had not been a complicated collection of bruises on that exam. On one occasion, I had broken one of my legs and the clavicle; on the other, I had an exposed fracture in my arm. Breaking only the nose, the jaw, and some teeth had been my best mark.

The chamber opened, and Doctor Chard helped me out. I could now shower, put the clothes waiting for me in the locker room, and then go back to the lodge and rest. All regeneration tanks were now occupied by students who had been injured. Some more seriously than me, but in the last phase of the exam, it was expected. I counted the injured, and only one was from my team. The chance to not need to spend the whole summer training for the retake for the first time in four years cheered me up. Would I make it?

Doctor Chard then called me and said:

“Gine! Three days to your 14th birthday. How about we advance the injection?”

“A well…” I said, embarrassed.

The injection. The notorious mandatory contraceptive injection that every Saiyan, male or female, was forced to take at age 14. My three best friends only talked about it since I was 12, and I would be the last one to receive the first annual dose. But I was the least enthusiastic of us.

Saiyans have a strange relationship with sexuality. Until the age of 14, it is completely forbidden for Saiyans to have sexual intercourse. So at the age of 14, they give you an injection and say: "Have fun with sex, kids, but don't have children before you are 21". Then, from the age of 21 until the age of 43, they tell you, "Have children, please have many children, even if you don't want them. We can take care of them for you or send them to other planets if they are not too good to be soldiers".

All because before 21, we are preparing ourselves to become productive, and it is proved that pregnancies hinder the studies. So, as Saiyans have low fertility, after 21, we are encouraged to reproduce, mainly those with a strong body and a great fighting power. After 42 years old, we are warned that it is time to stop because Saiyan researchers concluded that children of older parents have less fighting power.

And I was about to turn 14, but... unlike my friends Soya, Pea, and Lentil, I wasn't in the slightest hurry to have sex with a Saiyan Boy. I also had a male friend, Ben, and he was younger than me and kept saying he wanted to trade with me. The difference between us was that Ben didn't even have to worry about the contraceptive because he was interested in boys. But for the Saiyan government, it didn't matter: to be sexually active, it was necessary to "pass the injection.”

I stared at the doctor, a little upset. If I refused to inject, she would find it strange because it was not uncommon to advance a week or two, and I was already there. So I said:

“All right...”

She smiled and said:

“This is my survivor.”

That's what Doctor Chard called me. The skinny little Gine, also known as ‘meat girl’ because that's what my family worked on, was called by the doctor ‘survivor.' Probably because I didn't live in the Academy; I just survived, since I started.

She applied the injection to my arm, and I was preparing to leave the medical center when they brought him in a medical wagon, to my surprise.

“Out of the way, now! Clear! Clear! He is at risk of death!”

It was Bardock. The soldier one-eight-six. Lord perfection. But he was not looking perfect: his face was a red and shapeless mass, his shoulder was projected at a strange angle, and he was unconscious. I couldn't believe it! Had he lost the fight? But wait... the exercise was over, how could he be in that condition?

I was staring, shocked, Doctor Chard working in a hurry to take Bardock to the regenerative chamber. She and the nurses leaned over him, measuring his vital signs, and started working simultaneously. One took care of the exposed fracture, another the head trauma, and the last observed the internal damage. An instant later, they were lifting Bardock's muscular body and placing him in the regenerative chamber in a hurry to save his life.

Doctor Chard leaned on the table, relieved. Drops of sweat were coming down from her forehead, and her tail had come loose from her waist, banging from side to side. I realized that my tail did the same. The adrenaline of the moment had contaminated me. I got the courage and asked:

“How did Bardock get here? Nobody beats him in our class. I thought we had won...” I was almost crying with the prospect of the collective grades being dropped.

The doctor stared at me and then laughed, a nervous laugh and at the same time relieved.

“Heh, Gine, I know you and Bardock so well, but apparently you two hardly know each other. He did not suffer any harm in the exercise, that you see the consequence of his ‘aftermath celebration’”.

“Celebration?”

“Yes," the doctor laughed, “every end of the term, and sometimes even in other occasions, for nothing, Bardock puts himself in danger purposely. He calls an older and stronger student on full-contact fighting until one of them fell unconscious. And it ends like this. This time he challenged the prime student of the last year, a boy with fighting power of more than 8000!

“EIGHT THOUSAND POWER?" I asked, shocked, "but why would this madman do that?”

“Do you know that Saiyan regeneration increases fighting power?”

“Yes, but that's only a theory...”

“Well, dear, Bardock has been proving it in practice, you know? He wasn't the strongest of the class in the first year, was he?”

“I don't know; I don't remember.”

“Well, he's the strongest in his class now. And I think he'll soon be the strongest in school, no matter how bad is the price he pays for it.”

I observed Bardock floating in the yellow liquid. He was the strongest Saiyan in our class, one of the tallest, and certainly the bravest. I thought he was crazy. But I couldn't help myself admiring him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This fanfic does not show Gine in the so-called "Bardock squad." Still, it puts her as his academy colleague. And they don't interact much beyond the exercises during the academy period.  
> 2\. I wrote it to portray a Gine different from most I have seen, fragile and needing to be protected at all times. Our Gine is kind but has another kind of strength, the inner strength. I was inspired by an episode of Dragon Ball Super in which Vegeta says that the personality of Saiyan women is powerful.  
> 3\. Yes, Gine is good and gentle, but not a good-for-nothing. You'll see ahead, even be  
> 4\. The surnames of Gine and Bardock I chose based on complementary colors; Neela is blue, and Naaranje is orange in Hindi. Why Hindi? I don't know; it seemed to me I could go through a non-obvious language.   
> 5\. All Saiyan names I created for this fic came from vegetables, grains, mushrooms, or herbs. Chard, Pea, Soya, and Lentil are self-explaining. Finally, Ben is for "bean."


	2. The Last Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gine finds herself in a dilemma after the final exam in the Saiyan Academy.

One of the worst things about regeneration chambers is that the healing fluid doesn't smell good. In fact, it stinks. The only thing I've ever known in my life to smell like that is the insecticide that kills the andarian cockroaches at my great-uncle Kakarotto's farm, insects as big as a fist. To kill them, the chemical has to be very strong.

Leaving the regeneration chamber asks for a generous shower if you don't want to be nicknamed the 'junkyard mascot.' At least, this was one of the possible embarrassments of going to the Saiyan Academy that I didn't have in my curriculum: my baths were always slow, and when I left the medical department, I always whimpered more.

That's why I left the sickroom, took off my clothes completely, and let myself stay under the water for a long time, feeling the water seeping into my hair and my mind slowly emptying itself of the strong emotions of that day: the race at the beginning of the exam, where I had done reasonably well, the silent seepage exercise, where I had managed to escape from being seen and, finally, the elusive race, where I had sunk.

Who was I kidding, anyway? As a soldier, I thought I was a beautiful fraud.

I had already been at Saiyan Academy for four years. My mother had fought up and down the system before I was finally accepted due to my limited fight power. Anyway, I was mediocre. I had escaped being an infiltration baby sent to a low power planet to probably die because my father's family had an occupation and was ready to take advantage of me in the family business if I was no good to be a warrior.

I was immersed in all my self-pity, feeling insignificant, when other soldiers started to leave the regeneration chambers and come to the showers. I didn't mind being naked after all. The bathrooms at the Academy were collective. I studied cultures of many outer spaces planets and discovered that the Saiyans were some of the few that consider nudity separated from sexuality. It was comforting. I thought how I could be judged by my poor thin figure... not attractive for any Saiyan guy.

But the company I gained did not please me at all. Just when I had turned on the cleanser foam lever, two girls went into the showers next to me, and we continued to politely ignore each other, although the two talked to each other. If I hadn't been covered in foam, I would have left immediately.

Onia and Cellarie were two saiyans my age but much taller and much stronger. Neither of them was a third-class soldier like me, and they should have reached the end of the exercise with few injuries, but they did not talk about the exercise. Cellarie had taken the "injection" a little more than 15 days ago, making a point of saying this as loud as she could, triggering many volunteers to have her first time with them. Apparently, however, she was still as virgin as I was.

"But he rejected you?" asked Onia, and Cellarie shook his head affirmatively. I turned on the shower again to get out there the fastest I could. I didn't want to hear the two Academy's most arrogant girls' intimacy ostentation.

It's not considered bad to humiliate the weakest when you're a Saiyan, and those two loved to humiliate and provoke the crying of those they didn't like or considered weak. As incredible as it may seem, their provocations and offenses had never hit me because I knew exactly how incompetent I was, and I didn't care anymore. And I think I had cried all the tears of life when my father died seven years before.

So, while I was finishing my washing, I didn't care about them and neither they with me. Until I closed the shower and realized, without wanting to, Cellarie's indignant tone:

"Then he said that he didn't care about being anyone's first one and that I should care more about being prepared for today's exercise than about having sex for the first time. And then he said that I wasn't welcome in his room because we would be competing in different teams! And he threw me out."

"Wow... I never imagined this would happen to you."

I turned on the body dryer, which was really noisy, and stood there, feeling the hot air drying from my feet to my head, wondering who could have rejected Cellarie. Every guy wanted a girl like her, strong, beautiful, busty, tall. Everything I wasn't, by chance.

I went to my locker and started dressing well when a series of other soldiers, all covered with yellowish fluid, started going to the showers. The last in line was Bardock, which was impressive. After being on the verge of death, he only needed half an hour in a regeneration tank to be brand new. Our eyes crossed, and he apparently recognized me, nodding lightly, and I returned the nod as if to signal that everything was fine. He went walking, naked, to the last shower, and when he passed by Onia and Cellarie, they shot him with their eyes, and I had a sudden urge to laugh, but prudently pretended that nothing had happened and ran to my room, where I could laugh alone.

* * *

"So... He didn't want to make the Saiyan queen happy?" Ben, my best friend, was sitting on my bed, or rather, spread out. He was the only boy in our dormitory who had only future third-class soldiers: Pea, Lentil, Soya, and we two, of course. That's why we were best friends. None of us were great, but I was certainly the worst.

Ben and I did the final exam in the early morning and were waiting for the call for the meal. It would only happen after all the exams were over. We were both starving to death, which made us even more idiotic. That's when Ben told me:

"What about your injection, young lady? It's in a few days." he provoked, and I couldn't hide it from him:

"It's gone. Doctor Chard offered it to me today, and I thought it was boring to say no..."

"I can't believe it!" he said, putting both hands on his face in a hilarious face "so can you...?"

"Oh, I knew it was better not to tell you..."

"Have you ever wondered if you're going to Mr. Big B's room and he won't kick you out? It would be great. Those two were going to climb the walls of hate."

"You're very funny, Ben, but that's not gonna happen... Not in a thousand years."

"Why not? Maybe he prefers the short girls..."

I laughed and said:

"Ben... Don't you understand why he rejected her?"

"Because she's a disgusting bitch Saiyan-shaped cockroach?"

"No, although this description fits her well!" we both laughed, and I went on "she just miscalculated the moment. Looking for a guy like him before an end-of-period exercise is stupid. He was focused on the test and would never be with anyone. Even though she was one of the best at everything." I narrated Bardock's episode of coming between life and death in the medical post because he had "celebrated" the triumph in the exercise by challenging a guy from last year who was about ten times stronger.

Ben kept looking at me, seriously, and suddenly he said:

"So, according to your theory, whoever looks for the guy today wins the prize?"

"Theoretically, yes."

"Go on then, girl, use big B as your first one and become a legend!"

I rolled my eyes, and Ben laughed like never before.

"Why do you think he would reject you?"

"It is obvious!" I said. "Anyway, I wouldn't go after him. I'm not ready yet. I don't care about this. I want to spend my vacation HOME.

"You only did 75% of the action," he told me, and I frowned. "But look, according to that theory of recovering injuries make stronger, you should be the legendary Super Saiyan by now!" he provoked "nobody was hurt as much as you in this school!"

I threw my pillow at him, and he laughed. Suddenly he got serious.

. "Gine, my sweety... do you think there is any chance the perfect B-boy would enjoy... the same sex?"

I stopped, though, and said:

"There's no proof to the contrary!"

We both laughed, and the lunch sign rang. We left together, joking and suddenly Ben said:

"- Oh, so that's it, I'll try my luck tonight! I'm going to knock on Bardock's door and ask if he would help me to be not a virgin anymore!"

I couldn't stop laughing, and he kept making jokes as we went down the access ramp, suddenly he said:

"Bardock, be my date!"

Suddenly, we bumped into Bardock himself, who had come out from who knows where and appeared in front of us. I looked at him, petrified, and Ben stopped, looking like he had met our director, Master Squash. Bardock looked at him seriously and said, in a respectful and polite tone:

"Sorry, my friend, I don't like males."

Ben then, as witty as he was, smiled and said:

"Too bad you don't know what you're missing."

That finally pulled out a smile on Bardock's face, who went to the

"If one day I change my mind, I'll let you know."

He was going to turn his back again when Ben said:

"And if you don't change your mind, I'll introduce you to Gine, here!" he pointed to me, who wanted to disappear at the same time. "Everybody calls her the Cattle Queen because she was fed the best protein on the planet, the one provided by her family, the Neela, kings of meat!"

Bardock looked at Ben, still laughing, and then he seemed to recognize me.

"Did I send you to the medical room earlier today?"

"Not you, the solids," I played, "you just realized that I was almost dying," I said, trying to look as spirited as possible, and Bardock laughed. After all, he was able of it!

"I'm glad you recovered, Cattle Queen."

He turned around, and I punched Ben, who had just laughed, all the way to the cafeteria. I wanted to kill him just for revealing to one more person my unfortunate nickname. Bardock entered, alone and seriously, filled a tray with an absurd amount of food, and sat alone in a corner when we were eating. Pea, Lentil, and Soya were already with us at the table by then, and Ben told all uncomfortable episodes, proud of the embarrassment he had caused. The girls laughed and laughed, even more, when Ben ostentatiously waved to Bardock, who returned by laughing. I had the impression that he had looked at me for a small fraction of a second, but it really must have been just an impression.

I didn't know it, but that would be the last time I would really feel happy at the Saiyan Academy because that would be one of my last days there.

* * *

Saiyan society is complex, proudly unfair, and divided into highly hierarchical castes. And I was, in a way, a point out of several curves in this society.

To tell my story, I must first talk about my mother, Zucch. She was born with an impressive fighting power and reached out for all her life, from the Saiyan Academy to all the missions she participated in. In her youth, she never connected with any other Saiyan, although I had two brothers on my mother's side, born from brief encounters with other soldiers in her squad. They were born with low fighting power, to my mother's disappointment, and since they were soldiers' children, they were sent to planets beyond our galaxy as infiltration babies. And, as far as I know, none of them survived. 

She had one more pregnancy before me, only she had a miscarriage, which means that I never knew any brothers, except those on my father's side.

My dad's name was Raditz, and I have to say that he was completely different from my mom. My father's family became rich by dominating the production farms of the main meats that Saiyan eat (a lot): tsuru cattle and iak poultry. But this is an occupation that doesn't give any prestige. After all, it's nothing that generates great achievements.

But my father's family has always cared more for comfort than prestige. Like my mother, my father had two children before me, Parsy and Barly, and their mothers were exactly like mine: soldier women. At that time, my father was more interested in being a father than having a wife, so he offered himself as a breeder/provider for women who didn't want their children to end up as infiltration babies, but he never related directly with them.

My father himself could have been a soldier: I remember him, tall and owner of a very strong body, able to break a tsuru carcass in all pieces in less than twenty minutes. He was also beautiful, with long black hair that fell into a dense cascade on his wide back. My mother was attracted to him for this and fell in love because he was the kindest Saiyan man who ever existed.

When I was a tiny child, I listened, fascinated, my father telling me how they had met during King Vegeta III's coronation festival. He said they spent the whole Summer together, deciding that they should unite in a bond, which my father said was not common, but the deepest relationship that a Saiyan couple could have.

And, at the end of that Summer, they discovered that I would be born. I always cried when my father said that my mother had left very sadly for space when I was taken from her womb and put in a growing chamber.

Only that was a lie. My mother had probably left for space, disappointed, because I was considered weak and only I was not her fourth lost baby because my father said he would take care of me when I left the chamber and that he would prepare me to be a soldier, just like her.

Every Summer, my mother would come back. But she was not like my father. I saw them together and realized the love my father had for her, but she didn't show much love for him and almost none for me, so it was natural that I loved my father much more than I loved her.

My father called me a dreamer. I didn't think about being a soldier, but I wanted to know all the galaxies. I didn't understand why our people were connected to the terrible King Cold, and I asked my father why we took others' planets. I didn't understand why we, The Saiyan people, couldn't just stay like my father and me, there, quiet and happy in Vegetasei.

We Saiyans are interesting. We are strong, and many of us look young, even at a relatively advanced age. But certain things trounce us. A virus in the heart defeated my father. One day he was happy, cutting pieces of flesh and teaching me about life and the universe, and the next day his big body was lying on a bed, and I was sending a crying message to my mother.

My father's illness had no known cure.

I spent two months at his side, day and night, missing school and crying for him to get better, praying to the Great Golden Oozaru and all Saiyan gods and also those of all cultures he taught me (except for the Tsufurujins gods, these were our enemies). I saw him slowly fading away, but on the days he was well, I rolled up in his long hair and asked him to tell me beautiful stories.

One night, after a terrible day, he woke me up and told me that, soon, he would die, his body would be burned, and he would be scattered through space, to be forever among the stars.

"I will take care of your mother," he promised me.

I was already quite upset with my mother, who, apparently, didn't care much for the fact that my father was very sick, but I was frankly jealous and angry when he said this about taking care of her. In my mind, I needed him much more than she did!

But the next morning, I woke up with a huge noise in the big house's courtyard where most of my father's family lived. It was a travel capsule. My mother came out of it, shouting my father's name, and ran up to the room. My father, until then prostrate, had the strength to sit on the bed and say:

"You see, dreamer, Mom came to take me into space."

She ran into the room just in time to embrace my father and hear his last words, which were a declaration of love to her. She then cried copiously and said she never wanted to be separated from him. And that made my father die with a smile on his face.

When she separated from his body, devastated, I understood that bonding to someone was, in fact, a severe thing because something died for good deep inside my mother's eyes the moment my father stopped breathing.

And yes, she took his ashes to be spread through space and stay forever among the stars.

At no time did she comfort me. She just told me that I wouldn't miss anything until I entered the Academy. Except for her love, I had all I needed. My father had a sister and a brother. Aunt Pota and Uncle Tato helped me go through the rest of my childhood. During the vacations, I went to my great-uncle Kakarotto's farm, the funniest person I've ever met in my life. I even believe that I was thrilled, despite the regrets, until I joined the Saiyan Academy.

Saiyan education is taken seriously, and educational credits are a non-negotiable asset. Suppose Saiyan children have great intellectual potential or power. In that case, they should be sent to one of the academies, the Scientific or the Saiyan Fight Academy, where I was matriculated. But dropouts are not tolerated or accepted cheerfully.

When I crossed the doors of the establishment which would turn me, against my deepest will, into a Saiyan elite soldier, I automatically closed the doors to any and every academic career outside the military. If I gave up, I should become a meat merchant like my father and my older brothers.

During all my life at the Academy, I was told that I should strive to stay in the elite, that the reward would be a life of glories and achievements, and that was what I prepared myself for with immense sacrifice. I prepared myself to be like my mother and, who knows, to be one day like her and win her respect and love.

It was because of her that I did not give up until I was 14. And it was because of her that I gave up the day I turned 14.

* * *

We still didn't have the test results, and we were all taking advantage of the relaxation at the end of the semester. Some young Saiyans already released for sex spent the day with love mates. Of course, it should cost some kind of bribe for their roommates. After a stressful semester's end, others turned to games and jokes, outdoors or at the tables in the playground.

I'll never forget that I played cards when Officer Corn came to call me in the courtyard, very solemn. I imagined that there was some problem with my exam, or with some of my theoretical tests, but he took me to his office, offered me water, and sat me down before starting the subject:

"Gine, I need to give you very complicated news that was communicated to the school just now. And I need you to be strong because it was someone very close who... is gone."

My eyes widened, and I started to ask hysterically who had died, quoting the names of my uncles, my brothers, and even great-uncle Kakarotto. The director then put his hand on mine, now frozen, and said:

"Honey, your mother's ship was shot down in outer space by some enemy force, and there were no survivors."

"My... mother?"

"Yes, Gine. We lost several elite warriors, but Zuch was certainly the most valuable among them. I'm sorry."

* * *

Later, strangely, my friends decided to look for me and found me in the room. It was my 14th birthday, and they wanted to celebrate, but the way they found me discouraged them immediately.

I was sitting on my bed, looking at the landscape outside, considering everything that had gone through my mind since I left the director's office.

My mother was only 43 years old, an elite member, and had her best resources at her disposal, yet she was now reduced to dust in an outer galaxy. In the end, then, she and my father were finally together, pulverized in the stars. 

There was no more to send the results when it improved. There was no reason to evolve there. The whole reason for my effort had exploded inside a Saiyan ship, killed by some enemy we might never know.

My friends surrounded me and tried to console me, but my eyes were dry, and my heart had decided since I had heard that she was dead. Being an elite soldier had not saved my mother from a terrible and probably painful death. She was infinitely better at it than me, and she was dead.

I was in the middle of a big hug from my four friends. I would miss them forever, but I was used to missing people. I missed my father since he died, missed my mother all my life. Slowly I left their embrace, turned to face Ben, Pea, Lentil, and Soya, and said, sadly:

"I'm going to miss you guys."

"What do you mean," asked Soya, looking worried, "what are you talking about?"

I faced one by one, sadly, so I verbalized for the first time what I wanted to say since I joined the Academy:

" I'm sorry, people... I love you, but I wasn't born to this place..."

"No!"

"Gine, no..."

"Gine, don't... Think!"

"I thought," I said, "and I think I've been thinking about it for four years. I'm leaving. I asked for my resignation as soon as I heard about my mother's death."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. In his own words, Akira Toriyama had "laziness" in creating the Saiyan society. He left some gaps that I filled in my own way. Free sexual habits and a lack of inhibition were somehow, always in my Saiyan Society conceptions.   
> 2\. In some "origin" fanfics I read about Gine (mostly focused in Bardock), she was treated as a weakling soldier. I wanted to make her bigger than that. She doesn't even suffer bullying from the two "perfect" Saiyans because she doesn't care for being strong.   
> 3\. In the same way, I wanted to break the cliché man = strong, woman = weak. Gine's father is called Raditz, and her great uncle, who will also be important, is called Kakarotto. And they are great bearers of affection in her life, the origin of her tender nature.   
> 4\. The names that appear in this chapter, again, follow the pattern of being originated from vegetables, greens, or grains: Onia comes from onion; Cellarie comes from Celery, Zucch comes from zucchini, Parly and Barly comes from parsnip and barley, both roots from the carrot family. Finally, Squash is a melon cooked to make a vegetable noodle and Corn, you know, it is the same.   
> 5\. The names of the cattle and birds are also a joke. Tsuru is that bird origami and Iak (yak), a musk cattle common in the Himalayas. I changed it on purpose, giving the bird's name to the cattle and vice-versa.   
> 6\. Later, Gine will know that he made the best decision for her life.


	3. The scouter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gine is up to leave the Saiyan Academy and finds she has to learn how to work on the family business.

Then everything was really over, and I was packing my bags to leave the Sayajin academy for good. My eyes were dry. I hadn't shed a single tear yet, not for my mother, not for my giving up, and not for being a complete failure. I frankly didn't care; I just wanted to go home.

If I didn't cry, Ben, Soya, Lentil, and Pea cried all for me, always asking if there was a way back. But I had already made up my mind. I finished gathering my things and said:

"That's it." I looked at my friends' faces and felt a twinge of emotion, but I wanted to be strong. "I'm going to finish signing my resignation. My uncle is coming to pick me up."

The academy dismissals are silent, sad. I was walking alone, taking my student material to the office, thinking only of getting rid of it when I remembered that among the things I had to return was my scouter.

Sayajins are extremely dependent on their scouters, even those who are not combatants. With the scouter, we talk to family, friends, communicate that we will be late for an appointment, ask for help from whoever we can find in the neighborhood (very useful for those who have the habit of getting drunk). And we accumulate personal data on it. If I'd return my student scouter, it would be deleted, and I would lose the data and contacts of all my classmates and friends, becoming a creature isolated from the world. At 14 years old, this is the greatest tragedy that can happen to a person.

I said all this as I prepared to hand over my scouter to Officer Corn, who seemed to hold back his laughter at my drama and told me to relax. Before turning off the device, he pulled a small card from it and handed it to me:

"Put it in your new scouter. The contacts and information of all your classmates will be on it. But don't forget to connect with them to pass on your new contact token because your data will be erased from our student base since you are no longer part of the Sayajin Academy.

I returned my armor with the scouter and the evaluation camera and went out of his cabinet with just my civilian clothes. And then, I felt like a weight leaving me. I walked down the dormitory hallway, relieved. I was free from the pressure of reaching a standard that I would never achieve and pursuing goals that were impossible for me. True, I was doomed to work in my clan's business for the rest of my life. But that hadn't hurt anyone in my family up to that point.

I was lost in my thoughts when a door opened before me, and Cellarie stepped out, looking triumphant. She was holding loose pieces of her armor, and her hair was messy. She stared me up and down and gave a mischievous little smirk before asking, looking in:

"Do you want me to come back at night?

"No," Bardock's voice replied dryly from inside, "at night I need to sleep because tomorrow I am going to train early as Oozaru."

She slammed the door angrily and left. I looked at the door and thought for a moment about opening it and saying goodbye to Bardock. I had to confess that a part of me had also wondered what it would be like to walk into that room and be with him. Would he reject me after staying with Cellarie?

I shook my head quickly to scare away that useless daydream. Bardock would never look at me, even more so after I had dropped out of the Academy. Thinking about him was a childish fantasy.

In my now former bedroom, more tearful goodbyes awaited me, and I told them to hold back those tears as they walked me to the gate. If there is one thing that the Academy heads cannot stand, it sees students who are fond of huge sentimental displays. But the warning was useless, and they spent the whole way out of the school telling me how much I would be missed. I stopped in front of the large floating vehicle that my uncle always used to deliver meat to the Academy. He had come to bring one shipment and would bring another, I thought. I turned to my friends, laughing, and said:

"Stop this nonsense, I will always keep calling. I have contacts from the whole class. From time to time, I'll call you by the scouter, okay?"

I got into the vehicle smiling, but inside I was already devastated to think that I would never again wake up to Ben's hysterical shouts reminding me that I was always late. That I would not exchange confidences with Soya and Pea, nor be helped in any exercise by Lentil. The Academy had many bad parts, but they, my friends, were the best part of it.

* * *

"I could bet you were going to quit" my cousin Mint looked at me, with a debauched smirk on his face, at the dining table in my Uncle Tato's house.

"Leave her alone," said Pepper, my cousin, who was two years younger and had a kind of adoration for me. My uncle and my two brothers ran our business very well. No one seemed to be upset or care much that I quit. Only Mint, who was three years older than me and had longed to join the Academy, had failed the eyesight test because he could see the wrong colors.

My brothers told me that I could, at any time, choose to stay in either of my uncles' place or theirs, in the great Saiyan hive that was my family's close-knit cluster of houses.

"But when you want to have your own housing unit in the hive, you will be able to too," my brother Parsy told me," but only after you can earn enough credits to maintain it."

"And how am I going to earn credits to maintain a unit?"

I had never worked before, so I didn't have much idea of the value of the work my family performed, I only knew that we got a lot of credits because of it. So my uncle explained to me that there were three types of credits: the transaction credits, which were the type of credits my family had and were only valid in Vegetasei, the royal credits, which were what the doctors, scientists, engineers, and other Sayajins who worked for the central government received for their services, and the loot credits, which were what the Sayajins who worked on planet conquest earned that were valid throughout the entire Cold Empire and could be exchanged for lots and lots of transaction credits.

The government also gave educational credits to invest in a child with potential, fight power, or intelligence. When I went to the Saiyan Academy, I had used up all my education credits, so from now on, I could only study to become productive within my clan and accumulate my own transaction credits.

Our clan, the Neela clan, was large and rich in transaction credits, but I had an even more valuable currency: my mother had left many loot credits for me. If I knew how to save them, I would never have money problems and could even afford to live outside our hive. But I couldn't get them until I was 19, so I needed to start working as soon as I could.

"But I don't know anything about our Clan's work," I said tearfully. "Why did my mother think of wanting me to be a soldier?"

My brother then called me for a private talk at Uncle Tato's office. He looked at me and said:

"I would have given anything to be in your shoes, Gine. We don't have the same mother, but our father did everything for us, only I didn't have the fighting power to even start the Academy. And neither did our brother. We could have used our education credits to study to pursue any other profession, but we both embraced what our father left for us and made it grow and prosper for you to become what neither of us could be. And you threw all of that away."

"But I..."

"Yes, we know, it was never your will. But we also know that you never told your mother that. She was overjoyed when she learned that you might not be a prodigy, but you had some potential. And now you tell me that you don't know how you will work? Do you think that Barly or I had the chance to ask that question? We simply embraced what was offered to us, and since you simply threw away what you were given, it's time to do the same. "

"When do I start work, then?" I said after swallowing hard. I felt really embarrassed and wondered if I had done the right thing.

My brother let out a deep sigh. I guess it was hard for him, at 22, to have so much responsibility. Then he said to me:

"Let's do something. The way you are, completely ignorant of what we do and what it takes to handle business, you would be perfectly useless. You'll get a chance to learn first. And I think you'll like that chance."

"I will? What am I going to do?"

"Well, get ready for a trip. Tomorrow morning you are going to Grandpa Kakarotto's farm. But this time it won't be a vacation, like when we were kids. You are going, as Barly and I once went, to learn about our business. You will learn all about tsuru cattle from the person who knows most about them. Then you'll come back, and Uncle Tato will find you a position, you won't be short of work.

He was leaving when I said, now with tears in my eyes:

"Parsy... I'm sorry."

He turned to me. My brother was a physically weak Saiyan, but he had the most determined eyes I had ever seen in my life. They softened as he faced me and said:

"It's not even so much your fault, Gine. You would have been great at anything else you wanted to do, and I'm sure you'll be great at our business. You are a smart girl and stronger than you know."

* * *

I haven't had a room of my own since I left for the Saiyan Academy. When my brothers were younger, we all lived together in one house, the house that had belonged to my father. When he died, my uncles, cousins, and brothers decided it was time to modernize our residences by bringing other clan members close by. The house site was huge, so large that it was only knocked down when the first part of our hive was finished.

In the end, there were 60 housing units of various sizes, for family members and for the clan's aggregates who worked in our large fridge building that was less than a block away. The one my uncle lived in had once been the largest, but since my brothers had left for their own units and I had gone to the Academy, he and his partner had decided it was best to leave the largest unit to my Aunt Pota, who was a single mother with five children, all men.

One of his sons was already a graduate of the Saiyan Academy, Pumpk, and was on Mission at that time. The others were already working with my uncles in the meatpacking plant. From all the cousins, only Pepper was studying at the Scientific Academy. Later, she could choose an interesting profession like medicine, technology, engineering, communication...

But at that moment, Pepper had only one concern:

"But you've never even kissed on the mouth, Gine?"

"What?" I asked. "No! I'm not interested in anyone, never have been," I said while fiddling with the new scouter my brother had just given me.

"But isn't the Academy full of beautiful boys?"

I stared at Pepper. The Academy where she was studying was not a boarding school, so she did not yet have the independence common to young Saiyans, but she longed for it. I smiled and said:

"Yes, but I am not a beautiful girl," I said, " none of them ever looked at me."

I was talking to her and selecting who, from my class database, I intended to keep in touch with. From the 300 other cadets of my class, I had already sorted my roommates' names. There were a few of the rest I wanted to see or talk again. I deleted Sellary and Onia first, then others who were as disgusting as they were. I kept some squadron mates, not all. Finally, I looked at the remaining list and selected everything to delete.

"There wasn't even one guy you liked?"

I was about to say no when I noticed that I would delete Bardock's in the middle of the names. I thought of all the times he pulled me by the armor, helping me, thought of him covered in blood at the medical station, and the smile he gave when Ben played with him... and I took his name from the selections for deletion and moved it to "personal contacts." Then I deleted all the others, not really understanding why I had spared Bardock.

* * *

The next day, very early, a vehicle came to pick me up to take me to Grandpa Kakarotto's farm. It was an automatic carrier, without a pilot, programmed to take me directly to the farm, but very comfortable for the six and a half-hour trip to the farm that had been my favorite place during all my childhood. I slept for most of the trip, but I could see that we were already in the countryside when I woke up.

There were crops on both sides of the road. It was still the plantation sector. Soon we would reach the section where my grandfather raised tsurus. I opened the small refrigerated compartment and took out my snack. I ate it looking out, thinking about what so much I should learn to work with meat. I picked up my scouter to distract myself. It was the day of the final result, and I wanted to call one of my friends, but I wasn't sure if it was a good idea.

I activated the "find" function and saw that they were all in the Academy's room. By this time, they should have an answer about the result. I plucked up courage and made a conference call to all four of them. Lentill answered first and said:

"Cadet 035 Lentill speaking."

"Hi, there!" I said, "Tell the other geese to pick up the conference, please?"

"GINE!" she shouted, and almost at once the others came into the conference, everyone talking at once and driving me crazy listening:

"What's up, what are you doing? Are you working yet? When are you coming to visit us?"

"CALM DOWN!" I shouted, "One question at a time. I'm not in town anymore, but traveling to my great-uncle's farm."

"Really?" asked Ben, wryly, "at least it's going to be a great vacation for you."

"It's not going to be a vacation...I'm going there to learn how to handle meat.

It is like a butcher's workshop. All my cousins and brothers did it before getting into the family business."

There was a series of giggles and jeers from the other side, and Pea said she knew some kind of meat that I could handle without having to travel. I laughed and said:

"So soon I won't know about that kind of meat. I really need to get to work. And what about you, guys? Everybody was approved with praise?"

"SURE!" all of them shouted.

"Then you can visit me here during the vacations, how about it?"

"Oh yeah, we'd love to meet you in exile in the bush," said Ben, laughing, "And guess what? Before I leave on vacation, I'm going to get my injection..."

"What for, Ben? I doubt you'll get any guys pregnant," I said, and everyone laughed. I added without thinking, "is Bardock still in your plans by any chance?"

"I knew you were going to ask about him! I won the bet, see girls?" Ben shouted all happy, "Mr. Super Saiyan was first in our class, obviously!"

"He celebrated early, I see... " I told the story of Cellarie's exit from Bardock's room that I had witnessed the day before, and Soya said:

"So it all went very wrong! She's been looking at him today as if he had offended her personally."

"Really?" I said, surprised. "Well, it could be. I heard him saying he didn't want her in his room at night. He was going to train in the morning as Oozaru."

"Gosh, that's disgusting!" shouted Ben "how can someone train as Oozaru when they're not told to, just because they want to? I HATE becoming a monkey! "

I laughed. I didn't have good memories of Oozaru's control training either.

"But if he trained as Oozaru, it was early in the morning because he was at the results ceremony with everyone else," said Pea.

"That's why the bitch was mad with hate," said Ben, laughing "he lied to get free from hers."

We all laughed, talked some more nonsense, and then I said farewell and hung up. I already felt better just talking to my gang. For some reason, I decided to look at the academy map and see where my contacts were. My friends were still in their rooms, probably packing to leave, but I saw that Bardock was already leaving the Academy.

It made sense. Bardock had no family and few possessions. He probably just took his backpack and went to start whatever he used to do when he had free time. I kept looking at him on the map. For some reason, I selected 'track to follow location' and thought about calling him.

But then I noticed how ridiculous it sounded and gave up. I took advantage of the fact that I was with the scouter and tried to find out how long it would take to get to the farm. It was less than half an hour. I closed my eyes and sighed, happy that I was arriving, but I didn't realize that I had accidentally left Bardock's contact selected. When I opened my eyes, I realized that I was making a call to him, without knowing exactly how.

I panicked and was about to hang up when he answered.

"Cadet 186, Bardock," he said.

I opened my mouth, like an idiot, and suddenly realized that he had no way of knowing it was me since my data had been deleted from his base. I could say anything. Or say nothing at all.

"Cadet 186, Bardock," he repeated, " please identify yourself, or I will hang up.

His voice was so strong for a guy only 14 years old, I thought. Bardock was three weeks older than me. How could I be so less mature and developed than him? I said nothing, and he hung up, showing irritation. I took the scouter off without understanding why I felt a crazy adrenaline rush coursing through my body as if I had done something really exciting.

"Gine, you're an idiot," I said to myself as I put the scouter away. I looked outside. I was already wandering through the pastures full of tsurus. Less than five minutes later, the vehicle stopped, and a totally toothless old man with entirely white shaggy hair, as was his beard, and who was leaning on a gnarled wooden cane opened the door and shouted:

"So, you little piece of nothing, it means you finally understand that you're no good at this soldiering business, and you're going to learn from old Uncle Grandpa Kakarotto how to do something decent with your life?"

I swallowed hard. I guess it wasn't going to be easy to train with my great-uncle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. So that's it. Gine will have to work with her family, but first, she needs to learn how.   
> 2\. The 'reality shock' her brother has given her will really get her going. Gine is a good girl!  
> 3\. Cast the first stone if you've never called your crush and hung up when you were 14.   
> 4\. Ben is the friend every girl needs.  
> 5\. Grandpa Kakarotto, you will like him! The next chapter is one of my favorites: 'Little Piece of Nothing."  
> 6\. This fanfic was written before that "new concept" of scouters we had on "Dragon Ball Super: Broly, the movie."


	4. A Little Piece of Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gine learns about the family business with his uncle-grandfather Kakarotto but also learns about life and loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: tsurus are fictional animals, but their deaths are described in this chapter with no graphic details.

I had no idea how old my great-uncle Kakarotto, whom I had always called Grandpa, was. The only thing I knew was that when I was a child, he was already old, so I thought he must be about 150 years old, although that is an impossible age even for Saiyans.

When I arrived, he immediately ordered me to take my things to my room and put them away personally, adding:

"Here, it is not a hotel or a Saiyan vacation camp. The way you don't know shit about the family business, you're going to be here for a long time, kid!"

Something had really caught my attention about Grandpa Kakarotto since I was a little girl: unlike most Saiyans, he didn't wear his tail tied around his waist, but on the contrary, he never tied it. I thought it was because he lived in the countryside and was not so much at risk of being held by his tail by some enemy or potential attacker.

In fact, Grandpa used his tail all the time. It was as if he had a third hand. That's what I noticed when he took me into the kitchen, where he was preparing a meal.

"Can you cook, kid?"

"No, Grandpa, I never learned."

"What useful things do you learn at that Academy? Do you go to other planets and take ready meals in bowls? A soldier should cook!"

"Well," I said, "I don't think it's a priority for soldiers to learn how to..."

POW!

Grandpa Kakarotto's tail slapped me right in the middle of the head, and I cringed in pain.

"If a soldier doesn't eat, he won't stand. Everyone has to learn to cook because Saiyans eat too much!"

"Oh, Grandpa! Did you have to hit me with your butt for that?"

POW!

"That's for calling my tail, which is my pride, 'butt.' Where are your manners, young lady?"

"Sorry, Grandpa..."

"Do you know what you came here to do?"

"Yes ... I came to get ready to work in the family business ..."

POW!

"Oh, Grandpa! Stop it!"

"That's part of the learning process. You're in luck. If I didn't have my hands full, it would be with my cane, which is harder than my tail. "

"I don't know how I'm going to learn by being beaten," I grumbled, only to take another stub of his tail, "Ouch, ouch, grampa! Okay, I don't know even what I came here to learn!"

Grandpa was putting all the food together on one big platter. It was a stew of meat, seeds, roots, aromatic leaves, the typical tasty and nutritious Saiyan meal. When he finished, he faced me and said:

"Take this to the table, kid."

I obeyed. The dish was huge and hot, but I had endured worse at the Academy so that I could bear the weight. He came up behind me, leaning on his cane, and we both sat down. He said to me:

"Help yourself, child."

"But..."

"Help yourself, kid. I'll help myself later."

I put in a reasonable amount and waited for him to serve himself to start eating, then he said:

"What you have come here to learn is how we, the laborer Saiyans, 'weaklings' survive quietly in the world of the 'strong Saiyan warriors' without having to be humiliated by them. The strongest of the Saiyans need to eat a lot of meat, and we provide that meat, no matter how much they say we are worthless. And do you know why they respect us and don't take all the meat from us, leaving us apart?"

I stared at him, silent because I didn't know the answer, and he said:

"Because we are not afraid of them!"

I laughed. It was true; Grandpa Kakarotto was not afraid of anything. Unlike me.

* * *

I settled my luggage in the room that had once belonged to my father in the old farmhouse, which resembled the house I had lived in before it was torn down to make way for our Saiyan hive. I thought I would be resting for the rest of the afternoon, but instead, Grandpa came to me as soon as he finished tidying up the kitchen and said:

"Let's go! Move on!"

"Where do we go?" I asked, a little slow.

"To start your learning, you little piece of nothing!"

His tail curled around my arm and started pulling me, and I still protested because I wanted to get my scouter, and he laughed and said:

"You're not going to track anything but tsuru shit where we're going."

He took me to an old floating vehicle with the paint peeling and worn off in some spots. There were four seats, and I sat in the least screwed up seat, and he sat in the other one and said, pointing at me with his cane:

"Everything we eat is dead, but once it was alive, you know? The meat and the vegetables give your life so that you can continue to be there, breathing all this precious air and being useless."

"I'm not useless!" I protested and got a light smack on the head. He was right. It was more painful than the tail.

"You are useless since you decided to waste all the resources they invested in you by quitting the Academy."

I lowered my head, bothered. For some reason, it was different from when my brother told me the same thing, and I felt ashamed. This time I wanted to protest. I didn't because of the cane smacks.

"However," he continued, "it wasn't your fault. I doubt that if your father were alive, you would have ended up in that place you weren't born for. Maybe you weren't born to handle meat either, but now it's what you have left, so let's get you ready to be good at it. Do you know how to fly?"

"Yes, I do, Grandpa," I said, with a certain pride. Flying was the one thing I learned fast and well at the Saiyan academy.

"Great, you might need it around here."

I didn't quite understand at the time what he meant by that. Saiyans didn't go flying around because it was a bit risky in busy cities with lots of floating vehicles, but we were in the countryside, after all, and I thought he was talking about the scenery. Soon we were next to a tall fence, and on the other side, I could see a large number of tsuru cattle grazing.

Tsuru cattle have purple fur, and everything in them is used, from the hide to the nails and the bones. And I had grown up knowing this, although I rarely remembered getting this close to so many live tsurus in my life. Maintenance robots took care of the cattle, and Grandpa Kakarotto showed me his control panel that accessed the entire system of robots, which measured the herd's health and operated the fences. That was only a part of the gathering, but he told me:

"You know, when I was young, we had to deal directly with them, mounted on motorized fliers. It was a lot more fun. But I don't have the health for that anymore, although every day I come to see the herd personally." He opened the door to the pasture and went inside, and I stood there.

"What are you doing there? Come right away."

That's all I feared. To approach that monstrous herd whose lowest animal must have been 350 racs tall and weighed 3,000 digs. Enough to crush an adult Saiyan, imagine me. Grandpa was getting closer, and I was two steps behind, feeling a certain panic. Suddenly an adult male tsuru saw us and came walking cautiously toward us. Grandpa Kakarotto just said:

"If it senses fear in you, they know, see? It is worse when you are afraid."

Talking was very easy. I was nailed to the ground, livid, watching the monster's ugly face coming towards me. Tsurus eat only grass, and when I was more childish, I used to try my father's patience, asking how something that only eats grass gets so big, but even as herbivores, they can kill with a single headbutt. Females don't have horns, but the one looking at me with a suspicious gaze was a male with a huge pair of yellow horns, turning forward and ending in two blunt ends.

"The alpha is coming to examine the novelty," said Grandpa Kakarotto calmly. "He is already used with my presence here. But you may look different... Did you have a nice shower today? Depending on the smell... well, we'll see."

The tsuru started to walk a little faster towards me, and suddenly I understood what Grandpa Kakarotto had said about flying. When the tsuru threatened to speed up, I simply shot upwards, and in a flash, I was on the other side of the fence, terrified, panting.

Not only did Grandpa Kakarotto stayed there, but he was laughing as if he had seen the funniest thing in the world. I was bent down, hands on my knees, panting. And he gave a long whistle, causing the tsuru to stop where it was and turn towards him, walking towards him with a waddling gait and a docile animal air, which was nothing like the resolute way he had come towards me.

Grandpa Kakarotto gave the monster a gentle caress on the muzzle and then came limping over to the fence, opened the gate, and stared at me, still laughing. Then he said:

"You just had to stand still, kid. He would sniff you out, conclude that you were this little piece of nothing, and leave."

"But I was afraid!"

"He wasn't going to kill you for that."

"You didn't say that! You said they sniff the fear!"

"That if you were afraid, it would be worse. And it was, wasn't it?"

I stared at him looking dumbfounded, and he then said:

"Child, what have they told you over the years at the Saiyan academy about strong and weak?"

"That the world belongs to the strongest race!"

"Exactly... and you brainless fools come to think that the strongest is the one who has the highest fighting power according to what that electronic beetle you put in your eye says... nothing more stupid."

"But if I fight with someone stronger than me."

"Ah, yes, fight, fight, and fight...it all comes down to that fighting thing for you guys. " he pointed to the purple animals in the park and said, "the one who dominates, the one who makes the strongest is the one who has THE strongest MIND. A tsuru could crush any Saiyan if it wants to, but get this: our mind has mastered them in such a way that they live, grow and die by our hands. In a few days, that tsuru that frightened you will be sliced into steaks and will feed about 200 Saiyans... because our mind mastered them long ago. We must give them the best and most dignified existence, and that's what I do here. So I send them to their death. I have been doing this for eighty years! And I have never been hurt by any of them."

"But... tsurus are stupid beasts."

"You know who else are stupid beasts, in the King Cold Empire's estimation? The Saiyans, child. We follow that bastard Lizzard around like tsurus, do every job for him... and one day he'll send us to the slaughterhouse without hesitation. And that's what all the warriors 'full of fighting power' don't realize. They come here, get fed up with our flesh, with our milk, and leave for the stars to conquer planets... for others! And they kill themselves like your mother did, proud of their fighting power. Beautiful, strong but dead soldiers, killed to the grace of the Icejin empire. See what you got rid of, young lady?"

I shook my head vigorously. I couldn't disagree with him. Grandpa Kakarotto was the most sensible Saiyan that ever lived.

* * *

From that day on, I endeavored every piece of my body to become very good at my new tasks, but it was not a smooth learning process. Every day, I woke up very early, inspecting the corrals from which the yellowed tsuru milk came, taken for processing. And it was only the beginning.

After some months, I already understood each subtlety of a tsuru and stoped to away when they came towards me. I learned to cut a carcass by the joints, recognizing and separating all the pieces, knowing how to separate the best meats, the most valuable ones, from the pure load that only served to feed the Yak birds, which were also raised on that farm but which were not Grandpa's specialty.

"Iak birds are treacherous and mean. We eat them because they are smaller than us. Otherwise, we would be their dinner," Grandpa always said.

Learning from Grandpa was not easy, but it was more fun than it had ever been at the Saiyan Academy, despite the tail stubs and canes. He taught me to use my tail as a reference and radar, to sense the approach, to use it as a good working tool. But I didn't understand one thing:

"My father wore his tail attached all the time, just as my brothers and uncles do. Didn't they learn from you?"

Grandpa Kakarotto let out a long sigh and said:

"You know, kid, some Saiyans get carried away by other minds just like tsurus. It's considered vulgar to wear your tail loose, the stuff of bums, rascals. Your father and the others have always traded our meat with that scum from Vegeta's palace... so they've gotten used to moving exactly like every other Saiyan asshole who thinks everything should follow the same standard. Bunch of morons, all of them."

"I'm not going to be like that! " I said, immediately. He laughed.

"I'd like to believe that you have a free spirit, you know? That you don't just do the programmed deed. I saw that you'd been buried here with me since you arrived; you didn't ask to go into town to look for boys or girls like your brothers and cousins did. Didn't you take that injection?"

"I did, Grandpa. I'm just not anxious or curious about going after boys. There are more things to do in life than chasing after them."

He laughed and said:

"Just don't make the mistake of wanting to link with the first idiot that comes along... I advised your father, your uncles... none of them screwed up, Pota even kept dismissing guys because she just really wanted to be a mother. Just like your father."

"But my father bonded with my mother. "

"At the right time and with the right woman. "

Grandpa's face seemed to sadden, and he said:

"Your father and Zuch really had something special. He brought her here a few times. She always seemed proud when your father stopped a tsuru with his bare hands. He did this to show off for her, of course. It's a shame they died so young, girl. Your parents deserved to live more than they did."

"My father especially... my mother didn't care for me. I was almost a burden to her."

"Hey, who told you that?" Grandpa went limping inside and came back, bringing an old photograph. I was surprised to recognize my mother laughing. Suddenly what was in the picture really hit me.

It wasn't just my mother. That picture had been taken there, on the farm. And my father was in the background, waving. And my mother had a little Saiyan on her lap: me.

"I took that picture the last time you all came here together at the farm. Do you see your father in the background? It was right after they took you out of the growth chamber. Your mother liked to hold you on her lap. But she was forced to leave you behind some days after you left the farm. And I don't think she ever fully got over it. This growth chamber business... sucks. Kids used to be born differently; they weren't ripped away from their mothers like that. "

"What do you mean?"

"Before we abided by the rules of the Cold empire, children were not raised in incubators. They were born naturally. We are mammals. We have regressed to the reptiles' level, like the Icejins, by putting our children in a giant artificial egg, measuring the fighting power in a paranoic race of who is the strongest. I always wondered how many precious saiyans were be sent like shit to hostile planets just because they are considered weaklings. No, we are not all crazy monkeys, and maybe we are sparing away our people's best because of misjudging. This misjudging split off the bond your mother had with you, kid."

"I've never seen my mother smile at me like this," I said, and he replied:

"Of course not. Zucch went back to those idiots and saw you as she looked through a scouter, seeing only your fighting power. She would have loved you if she didn't just think about that. But warriors are trained to forget empathy. Few of us still can live like having a heart, indeed."

"Like my father," I said. Grandpa Kakarotto then held out another picture to me. It was my father, and he was standing between two tsurus, arms crossed, grinning his best smile. Only he was still a boy, long before I was born.

"Your father was 15 years old. He was strong. He could have gone to the Academy. But he chose our clan and made it thrive like no other. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have so many farms and not so many cattle to sell. He knew how to negotiate and be respected by those Vegeta assholes. "

"He wasn't afraid of anyone... " I said proudly.

"Exactly. And you don't have to be."

* * *

I had been at Grandpa's farm for eight months, but I was hesitant to leave. I already knew all I could about tsurus, and I had grown much more than at the Academy. I was stronger too. One day I realized that my work armor no longer closed around my breasts, and I had to ask Grandpa for a new one. He took me to the city, where workers from the nearby farms lived, as some members of our clan that I barely knew. A young man loading a truck of vegetables gave me a strange look, which was the first time this had ever happened. As I walked closer, he smiled at me, and I blushed.

We bought my armor and other clothes, and on our way back, my grandfather said to me:

"The bad thing about living too much is that. The other day, not so long ago, you were a baby. A baby I imagined I wouldn't see grown, and now you're there, almost ready to leave to the world."

"Almost? "I asked, laughing. I had learned how to cook, to work. I thought I was really ready for my independence. I would walk among the tsurus, watch their calves being born. Then I saw them slaughtered and learned how to deal with their dead bodies. But I hadn't realized that a single but crucial lesson was missing.

"There is one lesson missing, daughter, but you are not ready yet. And as I was going to say, it's bad to live too long. There was a time when I knew everyone in this town, and everyone knew me. People died and died... and today, everyone still knows who I am, but I don't remember anyone's name anymore because none of them are from the age I belong."

I found this sad and finally realized that since I had arrived, Grandpa had visibly declined. I thought it was likely that he wouldn't last long and wondered what would become of me when he was gone. He was now my favorite person in the world.

One day he saw me talking to his friends on the scouter, which I no longer did as often as before. Ben suddenly said, with a tone of malice, that Bardock had reached the power of 8000, and Grandpa came over to ask me who the hell was Bardock because he noticed my distress.

"Just a boy, Grandpa."

"Just a boy? Look, daughter, don't get lost in illusions because of the first boy who smiles at your pretty face, see?"

"No, Grandpa, that boy doesn't even know I exist. And I wouldn't have any illusions about him. Ben is joking."

"Don't delude yourself about first love... and most of all. Don't fall in love with a soldier who can go into space and die...leaving you here deluded and bound to him, too young to lose hope and too in love to move on! Beware yourself of suffering!"

A few days later, tidying up his things, which he left more and more lying around, I found a picture of a very strong and beautiful woman in a soldier armor of a design that must have been about 80 years old.

And I understood why Grandpa had never had children.

* * *

One day he told me he was ready for my last lesson, and I approached him quietly. He had his old monitoring device in his hand, which showed a row of tsurus in a hallway. He handed me the device and said:

"You can't work with them if you don't dare to kill them.

I felt like the floor dropped out from under my feet suddenly. The row of animals was slowly walking to their death. I had to trigger a mechanism that would kill each of them painlessly, a small needle to the heart that inflicted a shock that immediately killed the animal. There were 60 tsurus in line.

"I have to..."

"Yes, daughter, you have to kill every one of them."

I triggered the first device, and the first tsuru of the line crashed, falling immediately onto the conveyor belt that would take it to the leather stripping chamber. Even from a distance, even knowing it was painless, I felt like a killer. And I felt the tears in my eyes immediately. I, who had not cried when I received the news of my mother's death, who had not shed a single tear when I dropped out of the Saiyan academy, was now weeping copiously at the death of each ruminant I killed with the push of a single button. It seemed to last forever. Then, it was over. I was bathed in tears when Grandpa Kakarotto hugged me, saying:

"It's over, girl, it's over. You did it."

"I... killed them all, "I said, sounding incoherent, and Grandpa said to me:

"Yes. And if it was painful like that, think how you really weren't meant to put anyone to death. Try to think that those animals will now feed many Saiyans. They finished their time, and now they'll give life for everyone eating their meat. You have no cruelty in your heart."

"Oh, Grandpa... I really wasn't born to be a soldier.."

"Child, you weren't really born. But you had the courage and went all the way. You didn't give up. I am proud of you. You will never have to do that again. There are others colder and less kind than you."

" I had to do it, I know, but I am grateful I will never do it again," I said, still crying, and Granpa tapped my head with his tail, this time gently as like a cherish.

I understood that day I would never have killed anyone if I continued as a soldier. It would be easier for me to die than to kill.

* * *

I was ready to leave when I realized the obvious: Grandpa Kakarotto was very ill. I contacted my brothers and uncles, and they flew in from the capital in time to take Grandpa to a hospital. It wasn't easy, he handed out cane smacks and curses from all sides, but eventually, he gave in. His body was weak and declining fast, but his eyes were as alive as ever when I went in to see him after the hospitalization:

"How are you, my little piece of nothing?"

"Eager to see you out of that bed, Grandpa."

"You will see, but I don't know if you'll like it because I'll be on a funeral pyre."

"Would you stop that?"

He laughed and then told me:

"Listen, I told your uncle that you are ready. When I die, you will go with them. You won't stay here, buried on the farm. You weren't born for this place; you can do much better in the city with your intelligence and ability."

I leaned over, my eyes filled with tears, and said:

"Grandpa, I don't want you to die!"

He laughed again and said:

"That, unfortunately, doesn't depend on you, kid. You are not The great Golden Oozaru God."

I left and went outside to cry. That same night, Grandpa took his last breath. The next day, we lit his funeral pyre and recited his ancestry, common among us Saiyans. And I returned to the farm only to get my things and find that my middle brother, Barly, would take Grandpa Kakarotto's place.

"You can have my housing unit if you like," he said," or live with Uncle Tat if you prefer. But Grandpa was right. It's time for you to go back.

I nodded and was leaving to meet the others in the vehicle when Barly said:

"Gine, tie your tail around your waist. You're going to the city, don't forget."

I faced him with a defiant smile and said:

"I am going to town, but my tail will stay exactly as it is."

And, with a swish of my tail, I left the farm, which for me would forever belong to Grandpa Kakarotto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. forgive me for killing him; Grandpa Kakarotto is the master of this hero's journey, and anyone who knows the term knows how essential his death is for Gine to grow even more.   
> 2\. Yes, he is inspired by my own grandfather. Like Gine, I named a son after my grandfather.   
> 3\. The essentials that Gine learns from him should have been told to all Saiyans. If Grandpa Kakarotto were King Vegeta's advisor, they would have beaten Freeza.   
> 4\. One of the pieces of advice Grandpa Kakarotto gave, Gine will not follow. Can anyone guess which one?   
> 5\. The scene of her killing tsurus gave me a lump in my throat when I wrote it. I could never kill anything bigger than an insect without remorse. I would never be a soldier either.   
> 6\. Iaks I imagined being giant chickens, as I am afraid of chickens, I didn't portray them very closely.   
> 7\. Grandpa Kakarotto dies at the age of 106 Saiyan years, which means almost 115 years for a human, for those who want to know. Also about measuring: The tsuru described should be the biggest possible, 3,5 meters and 6t. of meat, but a regular one should be around 3 meters and 4t.


End file.
